Collectors Clamor for Napa’s Cult Wines

Bill Harlan’s ambition when he scouted for land in Napa Valley more than 35 years ago was to find acreage suitable for a vineyard that could produce wines on par with the great wines of France. “To create something that would last for generations,” he recalls.

That he succeeded is evident to anyone who has tried to get on a subscriber list to buy wines from Harlan Estate, the vineyard he founded in the mid-1980s amid the forested hills near Napa’s famed Oakville benchlands. A bottle from the recently released 2013 vintage retails for $850.

Harlan didn’t set out to create a cult wine, just a great wine, although one on par with the top-ranked “first growths” of Bordeaux. But the term has stuck to Harlan Estate and its peers that emerged around the same time, mainly in Napa. They are producers with the now-coveted names of Screaming Eagle, Colgin Cellars, Dalla Valle Vineyards, and Abreu Vineyards, among others.

Most of these select growers take advantage of Napa’s sunniest, warmest areas to produce Cabernet-dominant blends that have increasingly become as desired and collectible on an international scale as the top wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Lately, they’re also being called California’s first growths.

“
It’s a different level of scale, which gives these wines an aura of mystique.
”

—Kelli White

What the cult wines have in common is rarity—because they are produced in small quantities—and exclusivity, as these bottles don’t show up in local wine shops. They are sold directly to consumers through mailing lists that often have waits of two years or more. For Harlan, the lucky initial takers were his “Christmas list” of family and friends.

Despite their rarity, the cult wines gained fame beyond their limited audience after a series of high scores, including several 100-point ratings, from wine critic Robert Parker beginning in the mid-1990s, when Parker, through his publication, The Wine Advocate, “was at his apogee,” says Jamie Ritchie, worldwide head at Sotheby’sWine. “It was a validation of quality from the world’s most important wine critic.”

Kelli White, a sommelier and author of Napa Valley, Then and Now, says Parker’s scores “pushed the reputation of these wines beyond the normal limits.” Combined with limited quantities—fewer than 1,000 cases in many instances, versus up to 25,000 in Bordeaux—prices for California cult Cabs can reach as high as $1,000 on release. On the secondary markets, Sotheby’s has recorded prices for Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1997, for instance, at over $3,000 a bottle.

Napa Wines by the Numbers

$600

For a Colgin Cellars IX Estate 2015 Cabernet-Bordeaux blend.

$850

For a recently released bottle of 2013 Harlan Estate.

$3,388

Average price paid for Screaming Eagle 1997 at Sotheby’s in 2014.

“It’s a different level of scale, which gives these wines an aura of mystique and certainly an appeal to collectors,” White says.

But are they worth it? As Lisa Perrotti-Brown, now editor-in-chief of Robert Parker Wine Advocate, says, “Wine is worth what people are willing to pay for it.” Plenty of California wine is fantastic and far more accessible, but collectors and connoisseurs who buy cult wines are seeking a drink that expresses a particular place, one that is like no other.

“If you are an expert or a collector, and you really want to taste that place—in some cases, a piece of history when we talk about older bottles—then there’s no substitute,” Perrotti-Brown says.

What sets a wine like Harlan or Colgin apart, she adds, is a “no-compromise” ethos, from selecting the vines, through managing the vineyard to get perfectly ripe fruit, to, of course, winemaking.

So while Napa’s Cabs often get lumped together, they can be quite different, reflecting the vineyard’s type of soil and location—valley floor or hillside, for example.

Harlan Estate, catching the sun from its hillside spot, represents the “pinnacle of examples” of California’s rich, bold Cabs, while Screaming Eagle, situated north of the town of Oakville, produces “incredibly elegant, beautiful, perfumed, fresh wines,” Perrotti-Brown says.

At Colgin Cellars, co-founder Ann Colgin says she strives to “embrace the beautiful fruit flavors we can acquire from our wonderfully sunny climate, to enhance and stress the perfume, minerality, and freshness in our wines,” and to bring out the “personality” in each of the vineyard sites where their grapes are grown. Colgin Cellars IX Estate 2015, a Cabernet-dominant Bordeaux blend, was released at $600 a bottle.

Colgin came to wine through her work in the auction world, and, she says, as with art collecting, “you need to learn about it, explore it, find what you love,” and not be driven by the perceived future investment value.

“There’s nothing better than being at a table with family and friends and having your evening enhanced by great wine,” Colgin says. “I just think it elevates life.”

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Collectors Clamor for Napa’s Cult Wines

Bill Harlan’s ambition when he scouted for land in Napa Valley more than 35 years ago was to find acreage suitable for a vineyard that could produce wines on par with the great wines of France.

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